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Thursday, January 21, 2016

As I explained here, rarely does a winner of Shark Tank actually get any funding, any more do any of Trump's apprentices go on to bigger and better than their Apprentice stint. The Shark Tank is entertainment.

I have never watched more than two minutes of the show, since the premise is absurd. But what I do appreciate is a recent exchange by "sharks" as recounted by Thos. DiLorenzo at LewRockwell.com

"I like the idea of kicking the government in the ass." So said billionaire businessman Mark Cuban tonight on the television show “Shark Tank” on CNBC. The show features wealthy venture capitalists like Cuban who listen to pitches from entrepreneurs and then invest (or not) their own money in the ventures. The business in question involved an app that could help citizens contest traffic tickets.
One of the other “sharks,” Kevin O’Leary, explained that he is in the extremely heavily-regulated mutual fund business and that the government “allows me to make money” despite all the regulation. He dropped out, he explained, because of his fear that the government would no longer allow him to make money in his mutual fund business if he was invested in a business that deprived government of revenue. This was a good example of how there can never be real free speech in a heavily-regulated society. Criticizing government as a business person can bankrupt you or send you to prison. “See you at the IRS audit,” O’Leary said to Cuban after Cuban closed the deal ($700,000 for 7% of the business).

Just so. A mutual fund is deep into the fraud that is Wall Street, and it is legal by patterns and practices generally allowed by the hegemon, called in USA capitalism. It ain't the cards you are dealt, it's how you play them, and there is no judging a man on how he plays his hand. What is annoying is when a man tries to claim the way he played his hand is somehow noble, or smart, or altruistic, etc. At that point he expects his listeners to buy into a fasle narrative.

O'Leary knows the game is rigged, he makes money off it, and the hegemon can wipe him out in a New York minute. And he says so. No judging him for what he does.

Now, I bet O'Leary would the first to say let's withdraw the power from the hegemon so there is no such entity that has such power over us. Let the free market be our guard rails. O'Leary is no doubt another natural anarchist.